Imagine
by SeaOfWisdom18
Summary: What if you could remember something that never happened? There's a line between fiction and reality, but it's so thin, it would be easy to cross it. First fluffy oneshot b/c I'm used to angst. For The-Daughter-Of-Rome's contest.


~This is based on the amazing short by WongFuProductions, Shell. You should watch it on Youtube, it's amazingly creative..ish. MY oneshot is just like the short and it isn't original, but it was so deep and inspiring that I had to rewrite the short as Jeyna. you should also visit the commentary page and read the article, where Wes explains the idea more. The link is in the description below the video... So anyway, this is also for The-Daughter-Of-Rome's Jeyna contest. And I also realized this concept is a lot like Piper and Jason's trick of the mist relationship, but for this oneshot, completely disregard that. :)

_What if you could remember something._

_Anything you could ever want._

_The essence captured and stored into your brain._

Jason looked out the window. The dark night fell over the quiet city.

He adjusted the gray blazer he had on and cleared his throat. At 22, he was still the same Jason he was at 16: Awkward and uncomfortable .

He noticed the black buildings that overlooked the streets, the streets as well, which were filled with a wide variety of cars.

The sky was clear for once in New York, and the stars shone brightly.

Though beautiful, everything was angular, artificial, man made. Jason liked things that were natural. But finding a needle in a world filled with hay would be easier than finding something natural in Manhattan.

Reyna walked up and sat beside Jason.

"Did you know?" Jason asked.

Reyna frowned. "No." she stated._ "_That's sad. isn't it?"

Jason shook his head and lowered himself on the marble floor.

_"_Depends on how you look at it." he said calmly.

Reyna looked at Jason and chuckled softly.

"Of course you would say that. You're always so neutral. And safe." Reyna looked up at Jason, who had already gotten used to people calling him that.

"That's you."

Jason sighed internally. Maybe his personality was just like the city of Manhattan; Great company, but dull, boring, drab.

He stole a glance at Reyna. Her black hair fell below her shoulders casually. She was wearing a faded green top and jeans. Simple, but beautiful. Just like everything else in her house.

Everything surrounding him was simple. The white walls, Ivory couch, Marble floor. All different colors, yes, but still just another shade of White.

This sort of beauty did nothing to make him smile; it was minimalist; just like him.

His eyes landed on a shell laying on the floor. It was beige on the exterior, a soft pink on the interior. A typical sea shell. But Jason felt compelled to make it more than just an ordinary shell.

He reached out and held it gently. Looking at Reyna this time gave him a boost of courage. It was now or never.

gods, she's going to think I'm an idiot. Jason thought, groaning inwardly. Still, he kept the cool facade.

"What would you want to remember?" Jason said softly.

Reyna sent him a confused look. "What do you mean, Jason?" she asked.

"Like something that I forgot?"

Jason smiled. "Sure, why not?" he flipped the shell in his hands, waiting for a response.

Reyna frowned again. "But if I've really forgotten, how would I know about it, let alone have any desire to remember it?"

Jason tried to think of a way to explain his idea.

"OK, anything, then." he blurted out before his logical side could stop him.

"A memory of anything, real or not."

"A fake memory?" Reyna laughed.

"You don't make any sense whatsoever, Grace." she concluded.

'Exactly my thought.' Jason argued in his head.

"I've always been good at that, Reyna." Jason sighed instead.

"Here." Jason handed the shell to Reyna, who put it to her ear.

"The sound of the ocean." he said slowly. He positioned himself so he was directly facing Reyna.

"Captured in a shell. Like a memory. Imagine if it held something different. Something more than just a sound, but just as real." Reyna closed her eyes, trying to picture the ocean. She couldn't, for she had never been to a beach before. The memory Jason was trying to get her to "remember" just wasn't there.

"What if we had a chance to remember things that we never actually experienced?"

Reyna shook her head, internally frustrated. "What good is it if it didn't happen?" she said, Jason barely able to hear her. "No one would believe it."

"You would know." he insisted. "It's about the feeling. The line between fiction and reality is so thin, wouldn't it be easy to cross?"

Reyna refused to listen.

"The problem is," she began. "Is that I like my stories based on reality. You like fiction."

Jason nodded and shrugged slightly.

"It's just nice to be able to know what happens." he decided. "No surprises, no predictions. It's just there. The cold truth isn't lying beneath your feet. It wouldn't even have to be there. We could be anything, do whatever. And it would all fall back in place."

Reyna couldn't argue with his belief, so she simply gave him the shell.

"Tell me what happens." she said. "In this memory of yours that you never quite experienced yet."

Jason smiled, happy that someone was willing to listen to him ramble on aimlessly about his countless number of dreams...or memories.

Jason glanced at his watch and instead of looking at his own reflection sitting in a white house, he saw himself in a place he wanted to be. Both mentally and physically.

Woah, he thought, looking closer into his watch.

"When did that get there?" he asked out loud, inadvertently catching Reyna's attention.

"What's where, Grace?" she asked, frowning.

"N-Nothing...Anyway..."

Everything, as he had thought before, was drab and fake. He wanted to remember a place that was pure and calm. An untouched piece of land.

"I'm nervous." he finalized. His mind imagines a meadow with no one in it but two people.

_"They walk under a large oak tree and sit on the golden, lush wheat." _Jason narrates, enraptured his memory.

_He rolls up his white sleeves and brushes a tendril of hair away from her pale face._

_"I don't know if she can tell, but I'd rather not reveal it."_

_The wind gives a nice breeze to the warm evening, and they laugh at how ridiculously movie worthy it was at the moment._

_"Look at that," I gesture to the sky, and she follows my hands._

_"The sun's just begun to set, pink and orange streaked across the now hazy sky, and I whisper something in her ear. She looks at me in with searching eyes for the first time since we get there, but something's different."_

_She sits closer to me and smiles playfully. The faint glow of the remaining light shines on us._

_"Then she puts her hand on my shoulder and then-"_ Jason snapped out of his mind suddenly and he loses the memory. He tried to go back but fails. It's forgotten. He can't seem to continue.

"Nothing." he sounds hurt. His alter ego faded. In his watch was now the blonde haired, blue eyed boy, not the one he was before. He sighed.

Once again, just like when he dreamt about it...it disappeared JUST LIKE that. Maybe I shouldn't base my stories on fantasy, he thought, giving up.

It seemed too fairytale, too happy go-lucky and fake.

"It's not important."

Reyna too, was in a trance, in her own world. She didn't know how riveting fiction could be...since she never bothered to work with it.

"She put your hands on your shoulder and then what?"

Jason stares at her, and slowly, his memory comes back. He makes sure to store it in his brain and he gains his confidence.

He looks at his watch, and suddenly, he wasn't the boring guy wearing a suit. He was Jason Grace, lying down in a soft meadow. His mind flickers to both scenes, until all he can see is him and Reyna. Together.

This watch, Jason thinks goofily to himself. I think it may be magical.

He leans in closer and whispers slowly in Reyna's ear, "And then... fiction becomes... reality." They froze. A large breeze came behind the two and they vanished. Like a wisp of wind; a memory.

_What if you could experience something and KNOW something...that never happened at all?_


End file.
